After All the Scissor Work Is Done by David Fraser has been chosen for the 2017 ReLit Award Long Short List 2017.
Reviews
Recovering Words by Richard Osler
Vancouver Sun July 9, 2016 Review by Mary Ann Moore
Reviews
Recovering Words by Richard Osler
Vancouver Sun July 9, 2016 Review by Mary Ann Moore
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Margaret, December 1971
On the snow I hold my arms out wide like the angel above my brother’s crib. Mr. Harris will be mad at me when he knows I’m missing from his class. He’ll call my mom and she’ll be mad at me, and we’re moving on the weekend; Uncle Bobby’s helping us. When Mr. Harris finds me in the snow, I’ll tell him how last night I held my baby brother, how blue he was, how quiet, like my doll with her missing arm, how I didn’t tell my mom ‘cause she was busy with Uncle Bobby, banging the bed against the wall. I won’t tell him how I carried my baby brother with me to the school, how I made angels for him in the snow, how I made a crib and tucked him in behind the bushes by the steps and made more angels to keep him safe. They thought he was a doll. I won’t tell Mr. Harris how each night I want, not to cry, just stay warm, like my baby brother now, wrapped up in his bed beneath the snow.
David Fraser
Previously published in After All the Scissor Work Is Done, A collection published by Leaf Press Spring 2016
On the snow I hold my arms out wide like the angel above my brother’s crib. Mr. Harris will be mad at me when he knows I’m missing from his class. He’ll call my mom and she’ll be mad at me, and we’re moving on the weekend; Uncle Bobby’s helping us. When Mr. Harris finds me in the snow, I’ll tell him how last night I held my baby brother, how blue he was, how quiet, like my doll with her missing arm, how I didn’t tell my mom ‘cause she was busy with Uncle Bobby, banging the bed against the wall. I won’t tell him how I carried my baby brother with me to the school, how I made angels for him in the snow, how I made a crib and tucked him in behind the bushes by the steps and made more angels to keep him safe. They thought he was a doll. I won’t tell Mr. Harris how each night I want, not to cry, just stay warm, like my baby brother now, wrapped up in his bed beneath the snow.
David Fraser
Previously published in After All the Scissor Work Is Done, A collection published by Leaf Press Spring 2016
Leaf Press
Leaf Press Catalogue
email: Ascent Aspirations
978-1-926655-93-2 | 5.5 by 8.5 inches | 68 pp | $16.95
After All the Scissor Work Is Done
by David Fraser
These poems play with memory, finds out what's left on the cutting-room floor. David Fraser steers away from linear narrative, edits out connections, allows the reader room. But these are not pretty pieces: the poems scrape at the dark of human experience.
"The sepia of nostalgia creeps like a mist over these poems, yet the sharpness of his memories, imagined or otherwise, keeps the reader from lulling into complacency by asking that we confront, time and time again, our own human frailties and our own mortality. A brave book." (Naomi Beth Wakan, Inaugural Poet Laureate of Nanaimo, B.C.)
Leaf Press
Leaf Press Catalogue
The Pick-up Girl
Out of the longest shadows
when the road lay looped and black
he found a girl with a crooked smile
in the headlights of the car.
He picked her up.
She slid into the seat.
She was lipstick, rouge, long legs
and cigarettes, slightly tarnished,
not a lucky coin, and he knew
he was in trouble when
she put her bare feet on the dash.
She flashed some thigh, so he kept
his eyes on the dark ribboned road,
the rocks and brush on either side.
She told him tales of forty pounders,
mornings naked waking on the grass,
how she took the cherries off young boys
and how at night she cried for all the babies
she’d given up. He knew he could’ve
kept her safe, but bought her breakfast,
left on the table a bit of cash
and went to wash his hands.
She took the money,
hit the road, and found
another ride.
David Fraser from After All the Scissor Work Is Done published by Leaf Press 2016
"Good luck with the Launch, David. If that Pick-up Girl Poem is any indication, it looks like a great book. I like the way the poem doen't "look away" from the subject nor slide into a comfortable ending." - Bruce Rice
(Bruce Rice has published four books of poetry, including Coteau's Descent into Lima (1996) and The Illustrated Statue of Liberty (2003), which received the Anne Szumigalski Poetry Award at the Saskatchewan Book Awards. Bruce's first collection, Daniel,(1988) received the Canadian Authors Association Award, and his most recent title Life in the Canopy was also a finalist in the Sask Book Awards. He also received Grain magazine's 2002 Anne Szumigalksi Award for the best poem or sequence published in Grain that year. His work has appeared in Fiddlehead, Prairie Fire, Grain, Canadian Author and Bookman, and Event. His work has been broadcast on CBC radio and he has collaborated on several poetry performances and excerpts which were performed in Globe Theatre's "On The Line" series.)
Out of the longest shadows
when the road lay looped and black
he found a girl with a crooked smile
in the headlights of the car.
He picked her up.
She slid into the seat.
She was lipstick, rouge, long legs
and cigarettes, slightly tarnished,
not a lucky coin, and he knew
he was in trouble when
she put her bare feet on the dash.
She flashed some thigh, so he kept
his eyes on the dark ribboned road,
the rocks and brush on either side.
She told him tales of forty pounders,
mornings naked waking on the grass,
how she took the cherries off young boys
and how at night she cried for all the babies
she’d given up. He knew he could’ve
kept her safe, but bought her breakfast,
left on the table a bit of cash
and went to wash his hands.
She took the money,
hit the road, and found
another ride.
David Fraser from After All the Scissor Work Is Done published by Leaf Press 2016
"Good luck with the Launch, David. If that Pick-up Girl Poem is any indication, it looks like a great book. I like the way the poem doen't "look away" from the subject nor slide into a comfortable ending." - Bruce Rice
(Bruce Rice has published four books of poetry, including Coteau's Descent into Lima (1996) and The Illustrated Statue of Liberty (2003), which received the Anne Szumigalski Poetry Award at the Saskatchewan Book Awards. Bruce's first collection, Daniel,(1988) received the Canadian Authors Association Award, and his most recent title Life in the Canopy was also a finalist in the Sask Book Awards. He also received Grain magazine's 2002 Anne Szumigalksi Award for the best poem or sequence published in Grain that year. His work has appeared in Fiddlehead, Prairie Fire, Grain, Canadian Author and Bookman, and Event. His work has been broadcast on CBC radio and he has collaborated on several poetry performances and excerpts which were performed in Globe Theatre's "On The Line" series.)
David P. Fraser has lived in the UK, Canada, the US and Mexico, but now he lives on an island in the Pacific. His poetry and short stories have appeared in many journals and anthologies. Also, he has published six collections of poetry. Now he focuses on writing mystery thrillers. When he is not writing he likes to hike in the mountains and along the coastline trails, as well as ski and play tennis.
Dead Or Disappeared is his first Jack McQueen novel which will be launched soon. His second McQueen thriller in the series, Dead by the Hands of Other Men, will be available in 2024. Contact: Ascent Aspirations
Dead Or Disappeared is his first Jack McQueen novel which will be launched soon. His second McQueen thriller in the series, Dead by the Hands of Other Men, will be available in 2024. Contact: Ascent Aspirations